Denver’s B-Cycle bike sharing program is getting ready to launch, courtesy of Trek, Humana, and beloved marketers Crispin, Porter & Bogusky (this is a nice change from their Burger King work) The goal - “changing the way you get around.” Truthfully, rather than franchising this, brands (bike and beyond) communities and creatives should take note and get their own programs started up. That’s a lot of ‘goodness’ to go around…
Via Uncrate
From Timberland’s Earthkeepers blog, a great project from Ashoka’s Changemakers and the folks at GMCR. Only 5 hours left to enter!:Green Mountain Coffee and Ashoka’s Changemakers have come together to find and help fund the most innovative ideas and organizations that strengthen and improve communities in Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut or Massachusetts.
Enter or nominate innovations from now until April 21, 2010. The best innovations will be awarded prizes totaling USD $50,000, and nominators are also eligible for prizes.
http://www.changemakers.com/Revelation
We’ll have more on this project soon, as well as our visit to Green Mountain Coffee’s solar array in Waterbury.
Read the full interview here:
Every stream I fish now is not as good as it used to be. If you keep your eyes open as you travel around, you realize we are destroying this planet. I’m very pessimistic about it. I’ve created this business that I don’t really need.
The Pentagon says new wars are going to be resource wars. We’re a long way from having a sustain-able society.
You have to get away from the idea that it’s philanthropy. I look at it as a cost of doing business. Every business should say, We’re polluters, we’re using our nonrenewable resources, and therefore we should tax ourselves.
We’re working very closely with it on establishing criteria for sustainable clothing. Wal-Mart is dead serious about this. It asked me what’s the single most important thing that it could do, and I said, “Take responsibility for your product from birth till birth.” It’s trying to do organic-cotton clothing, and there’s not enough organic cotton in the world to ever supply Wal-Mart. There never will be. So it’s going to have to get into making, say, work clothes out of 100% recyclable polyester and then when customers are done with it, recycling it back into its original polymer, and making more work clothes. We have to stop the idea of consuming-discarding.
Two reasons to pick up the latest issue of Rolling Stone - the Bob Dylan interview by Douglas Hinckley, and an article entitled “The Mayor of Hell” by Janet Reitman. Hell is Braddock, PA - pop. 2500, poverty stricken, in the shadow of Carnegie’s first steel mill. The mayor is John Fetterman, and his crusade may be one of the most daunting and significant urban revitalization projects in our country. I encourage you to pick up the magazine and check out the city’s website - where we got these photos.
As promised, more pics of the new 070 below, which has been delivering on casual comfort. We’re also glad to see NB recognizing that process efficiency and eliminating waste can impact both the environment and profits. Looking forward to seeing more from their entry into this category.
As expected, Bezos made his move today, unveiling the Kindle DX at Pace University. What stands out right now are the college text book and newspaper pilot programs. With Mac tablet/touch rumors everpresent, should be an interesting summer.
Just got our hands on the New Balance 070, the first shoe in their “Eco-Prefer” collection. Using rice husks in the outsole, water-based adhesives and recycled polyester in the upper, and a unique symmetrical design to reduce waste in production, NB is off to a good start here. We’ll post more detailed pics tomorrow, but check out the YouTube teaser here.
Rob Walker had an excellent installment of his Consumed column for the New York Times Magazine yesterday on collective buying power strategies in regard to solar. Rob’s blog and book, Buying In, have become key reads for our generation of marketers, bloggers, and trend hunters.
From the Office of the Governator…
“President Obama and I share similar priorities right now when it comes to helping the economy rebound and creating a greener California and America,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “In California we will utilize federal economic stimulus funds and public-private partnerships to help stimulate our economy while initiating actions to improve our environment. Green jobs are exactly what our economy and environment need right now - and the California Green Corps targets that need while helping at-risk young adults realize a brighter future.”
Read more here.
The Oregonian points us to a unique collaboration by brands in the outdoor gear industry. The likes of Nike, REI, and Keen have started the Eco Working Group, a collaborative effort to create a system to truly measure their environmental footprint, and combat the greenwashing in their industry.
The group’s chairman, REI’s Kevin Myette: “Let’s not compete on our language. But once we create it, let’s compete like crazy on reducing environmental impact.”
The Oregonian - Outdoors Retailers Band Together to Develop Eco-index
Nice deer. The Samsung Blue Earth calls itself the “first solar powered full-touch screen phone.” We also know the body is constructed from recycled PCM plastic and bean-derivative PA11, has a built in pedometer, and employs various “eco-modes.” The phone has two charging options- it can be charged through solar, but it’s regular wall charger is 75% efficient, compared to the industry standard 60%. The packaging is also 40% lighter than typical phone packages. That said, when and where it will be available remains to be seen. Let’s see who follows suit.
There is $25B in loans waiting to be issued to a number of suitors to help the electric car see some daylight. Detroit wants $18B - Chevy for the Volt, Ford for some retooling programs, god knows what for Chrysler - and A123 Systems wants $1.8B to build a next gen battery plant in Detroit. Bush wanted to use it to bailout the Big 3, luckily that was rejected. Now, the decisions fall on Stephen Chu, a defining moment to say the least.
The New York Times: $25 Billion to Promote Electric Cars Is Untouched
Fast Company has done a nice job positioning itself within the innovation and design dialogue, and staving off magazine extinction in the process. Here’s three stories we saw this morning:
Clean Coal: It’s Not a Misnomer, But is it the Answer?
2010 Toyota Prius to Achieve 50 MPG
Fore! Bronx Water Treatment Plant Doubles as a Driving Range
Check out Wired’s blog for a cool story on Toyota’s future plans for bioplastics. A quote from Toyota project manager Tetsuya Kaida:
“In the future, I’m sure we will have access to new and better materials, such as those made from plants, something natural, maybe something like paper. In fact, I want to create such a vehicle from seaweed because Japan is surrounded by the sea.”
Another reason I love Japan.
The Vans Vault has been active, and this Spring, drops the Eco Pack. Featuring the Era (pictured) and Sk8-Hi, they collaborated with Maharam, using their Messenger fabric - a material made form 78 percent post-industrial recycled polyester, 15 percent polyester and 7 percent nylon.
With nearly 600 panels, the roof of Green Mountain Coffee’s distribution facility in Waterbury will become Vermont’s biggest solar array by summer 09. The all-VT deal was struck between GMC, the State, Green Mountain Power, and groSolar. The yield? About 1% of the company’s overall power usage, but a small step in the right direction. We look forward to getting up on the roof this summer to check it out.
“The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.”
“Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector, jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit.”
“We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.”
“Well, I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders, and I know you don’t, either. It is time for America to lead again.”
“But to truly transform our economy, to protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.”
“So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. That’s what we need.”
We’re just curious. I think it was 2007 when DiCaprio and Gore proclaimed that the Oscars had “officially gone green.” In 2009, Hugh Jackman made it known the musical is back, so… I guess ‘green’ is very 2007. Anyway, the most wholly sustainable thing they could do is make the telecast an hour shorter.
If you need some eco-flavored Hollywood news, check out the entertaining Ecorazzi.
Business Week gives a great overview of the electric car battery landscape - the players, the hurdles, the implications. Can the U.S. step up and try to own a piece of this market, or will we get left behind?
GreenBiz pointed us towards the California Green Innovation Index, created by Next10, an independent organization focused on innovations and empowering Californians to improve the state’s future. While most of us know that Cali leads on many renewable and sustainable fronts, the report has a lot of interesting bites:
One area that the state leads in is registration of alternative fuel vehicles. From 2006-2007 the registration of new and used alternative fuel vehicles jumped 36 percent, topping 100,000 for the first time ever in a year.
Rich will be “on tour” in CA this week, so stay tuned for some info on local difference makers.
Green Biz: California’s Green Innovations: Steady Momentum, Plenty Work to Do
A great article in the New York Times’ about Shai Agassi and his company Better Place, who are trying to build a charging infrastructure for electric cars to succeed. While he is catching on in Denmark, Japan, and his home country of Israel, the US will prove to be a tougher sell, even with many electric cars in the pipeline.
The New York Times: Mapping a Global Plan for Car Charging Stations
The Shepard Fairey invasion continues. The WWF’s Earth Hour is mobilizing to get everyone to flick off the lights for an hour on March 28, 2009 at 8:30 p.m., local time “to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate their commitment to finding solutions.” Where this poster is available, though, remains to be seen.
Via High Snobiety, GOOD
Launched as part of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Subcommittee on Green Jobs will be chaired by Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders:
“We’re going to use this subcommittee to do everything we can to create millions of good-paying jobs in the United States as we move forward to a new energy system based on efficiency and sustainable energy,” Sanders said Tuesday. “The potential for job growth in this area is bigger than almost anything else I can think of.”
An ambition realized? One of the biggest “wait and see” moments of my generation…
